Youth-MADE films address racism
Programs
“When you take people from different socio-economic statuses, abilities, ethnicities, ages, backgrounds and sexual orientations and bring them to a place where they are forced to create their own community – magic results.”
Angela Brown, VSB’s Anti-racism & Diversity Consultant, refers to the mutual respect and trust that resulted between the teens involved in Youth-MADE (Media Arts and Diversity Education and Empowerment).
The project is a result of a collaboration between Brown, Deblekha Guin, founder of Access to Media Education Society (AMES) and Sara Kendall, Program Director of LOVE BC (Leave Out Violence).
For phase one of the project, they brought together a group of culturally diverse youth to participate in a media-intensive film workshop at the Gulf Islands Film and TV School on Galiano Island. Six of the participants were from the Port Alberni School District and thirteen were chosen from programs within the VSB such as alternative education, adult education, mini school and secondary schools.
In preparation for the Galiano workshop, the Port Alberni students travelled to Vancouver to meet their peers and take part in a three day introductory workshop. “We worked on community-building to help ensure a respectful environment was created for all participants so they’d feel engaged and safe in speaking the truth about their experiences,” said Brown.
“We took a hearts-based approach and worked in creative and artistic ways with them. We introduced anti-oppression work and examined how they position themselves in society.”
Once on Galiano, the students, ranging from 17 to 20 years of age, courageously and creatively represented their racial and discrimination lived experiences through art, drama, music, spoken word, film and animation.
In ten days, they wrote their own scripts, storyboards, filmed and edited four videos and two animations.
For phase two of the project community consultations and dialogues will take place in Port Alberni and Vancouver. These will bring together youth and adults to help identify and address the barriers to inclusion, equity and mutual respect that exist and to help build, mend and maintain the bridges between various sectors in the communities. The Vancouver dialogue will take place in Fall 2009.
In the final phase, the team will develop and disseminate a documentary about the “making of the project’ and a supplementary teaching resource to engage students to think critically about the youth-developed videos.
These will enable students to see the power and value of digital storytelling, engage in courageous conversations, share their lived experiences, examine their own privileges, biases and assumptions, and to take action to help eliminate racism & discrimination in their school communities and in society. Training sessions and resources will be available to teachers in 2010.
